Monroe County sheriff’s deputies turned around hundreds of people from two checkpoints this weekend because they didn’t have the proper documentation to show they either live or work in the Florida Keys.
A Margate man got through the checkpoint on the 18 Mile Stretch of U.S. 1 Sunday night, but his trip came via the back of a deputy’s patrol car.
Deputies say Andres Alfredo Salcedo, 26, stopped at the checkpoint around 8:30 p.m. in his Nissan Altima, and when he rolled down his window, “the overwhelming odor of unburnt green marijuana emitted” from inside the car.
According to his arrest report, deputies found three plastic sandwich baggies in the trunk of Salcedo’s car, each containing about an ounce of marijuana.
“It is common for street level dealers to package marijuana in this manner,” Deputy Aaron Roddy wrote in his report.
Deputies also say they found three packages of “nerd rope” marijuana edibles in the car’s back passenger seat and a pill that field tested for amphetamine. There was also a “white powdery substance” in a baggie that deputies found inside an iPhone box, according to the report.
Roddy stated that he sent the substance to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab for testing.
Immediately after Salcedo pulled up at the checkpoint at mile marker 112, Roddy said he saw a black marijuana grinder resting in a cup holder “in plain view.”
Salcedo was taken to the county jail in Plantation Key, where he remained Monday night on a bond of $40,000. He was booked on two felony marijuana possession counts, one count of possession of synthetic marijuana, one count of possession of a controlled substance without a prescription and misdemeanor drug equipment possession.
*story by the Miami Herald